Will You
by csiphile
Summary: Alec goes looking for trouble, but finds something else when he comes upon Max. MA


Title: Will You?

Author: CSIphile

Rating/Category: PG/Romance

Pairing: MA….though no Logan bashing, he wasn't THAT bad a guy (hey! Stop throwing things!)

Archive: Just ask. Thanks

Disclaimer: I bought them on the black market for a dollar, so now I DO own them. HA! Ohhh as if, I don't own any of this, the characters are James Cameron's and Charles Eglee's. The song that I based the fic on is owned by P.O.D. The only thing that's mine is the plot, such as it is. 

Thanks: Big, HUGE thanks to Miss E, who has been one of THE best beta's Ive had, bar none. Despite not being a M/Aer she fixed my grammar and didn't make comments about how Alec and Max don't belong together (not that I expected her too). Actually, she gave me the best compliment a fic writer can get today. She's been with me through 3 fandom's and more words then I care to think about. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. 

AN: This is my very first DA fic. I have written quite a bit for CSI and WaT before, so some of you may recognize my name. Maybe. I don't know how many people here watch both…er…watched both. Anyway, reviews are GREATLY appreciated, I'm working on a DA WIP and happy reviews for this will let me know its not a waste of my time. Thanks in advance! Hope you enjoy!

Will You? By P.O.D__

_See you sittin' next to the window in the bedroom   
She brakes down - brakes down   
Crying over something and starin' into nothin'   
Afraid now - hate now _

_Wanting, needing, haunting, it's killing me   
Faking what has happened to live the life like that man   
I'll brake down - It's fake now _

_Will you, Will you love me tomorrow?   
So Will You, Will you stay with me today? _

_Fade in and out of reason to fight the way she's feelin'   
She brakes down - brakes down   
Going through the motions and holding onto hopes   
and her dreams now - somehow _

_Shaken, mistaken, forsaken, it's killing me.   
Wishing you could change, but he's always been this way   
If you leave now - I'll drown _

_Will you, Will you love me tomorrow?   
So Will You, Will you stay with me today?   
Will you, Will you be here tomorrow?   
So Will You, you remember yesterday? _

_Yesterday! Yesterday!   
Yesterday! Yesterday! _

_This time, I'm sorry   
This time, I'm sorry   
This time, this time, I'm sorry for this time   
This time, this time, I'm sorry   
This time I'm sorry! _

_Will you, Will you love me tomorrow?   
So Will You, Will you stay with me today?   
Will you, Will you be here tomorrow?   
So Will You, you remember yesterday? _

_Will you, Will you love me tomorrow?   
So Will You, Will you stay with me today?   
Will you, Will you be here tomorrow?   
So Will You, you remember yesterday? _

_Will you? [x6]  
So Will You?   
Will you? [x6]_

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He pushes open the surprisingly heavy door, without knocking of course, prepared to start another verbal sparring game with her. He had been half-heartedly looking for her all day before thinking to try her apartment with Terminal City. With an evil grin on his face, he moves across the room to her. She is standing at the window, facing away from him. All the lights are off; only the moon and some randomly working streetlights illuminate the small room. Alec is looking for trouble honestly, and it has been a while since he picked on his favorite mark.

Max.

Something has been bothering her as of late. Beside her usual litany of bothersome problems, himself included. Just yesterday, she had practically taken the head off another X5 she had been sparring with. He knows she won't really talk to him. Not like she did the night he stayed at her place and she confessed her part in the end of his brother's life. His brother. Pfffft. The bane of his existence is more like it. 'Focus Alec,' he chides himself internally, he's here to try and pull Max from this funk--and maybe mess with her a bit-- not put himself in one. 

Approaching her slowly, Alec finally realizes something. She hasn't noticed him. Granted, he IS an X5, and capable of sneaking up on a cheetah, but so is she. She should know he is in the room, standing maybe 15 feet from her. Something about this revelation disturbs him more than her mood. It should not be so easy to sneak up upon the de-facto leader of TC. Ever.

Using the window to his advantage, he first acknowledges the deluge of rain that has hit Seattle as of late. This would be the third day in a row of rain, which turned out to be a blessing; some of the engineers in the group figured out a way to harness the rain and use it to get the plumbing at least half running, in addition to providing some reasonably fresh water. Moving his eyes across the glossy surface, he skims over his reflection's presence in the window, choosing to focus on hers.

The hell.

She's….crying. At least he thinks so. For a minute, Alec considers that the rain on the outside could make it look like she is crying. But his transgenic nature, for all it's worth, determines that's not the case. She is crying soundlessly. 

Damn. All thoughts of messing with her fly right out of his mischievous little head. There are few things that cause Max to break down into tears. 

The death of one of their own.

And…Logan.

No one had died recently that he is aware of. Now, he's mad. If that jackass did something to her, Alec is going to put a world of hurt on him --the kind that only a Manticore education can provide. Again approaching her, he is surprised by her sudden voice in the dark room.

"Alec."

"Hey." Normally talkative to a fault, he is lacking words since his original reason for coming in here is no longer appropriate.

"Something wrong?"

She doesn't move from the window, only raises one hand to wipe at her face.

"Not with me." 

When it's apparent she isn't going to continue the conversation, he continues it. "Max…are you ok?"

"Why do you care?"

Ahh yes, there's the Max he knows. Immediately going on the defensive. Using anger to distract, to make the other person mad so they won't continue a conversation she doesn't want to have. 

He ignores her. "What's wrong?" 

Alec had realized long ago he would do anything for this woman. Not an enviable place to be, considering she hated him eighty percent of the time. But he did it anyway, for reasons he had also long ago just accepted. He has to admit to himself that he was just a version of Max, a step below the one standing in front of him. They both despise Manticore, but express it in their own way. She is more…..action-oriented, while he was content to break the rules under their noses and enjoy every minute of it. She's aggressive; he's more passive in his rebellion. Maybe Manticore knew what they were doing when they paired them as breeding partners, or they didn't and it came back to bite them in the ass. Either way, the second he walked into that cell, their fate was sealed. 

He simply stays with her because he wants to. Despite all his training to the contrary, everything that tells him to get the hell out of here, to keep moving, he stays. Because he couldn't imagine being anywhere else except by her side when the transgenics were finally exposed. At some point in their strange journey between a mistaken identity and a formation of a nation, they had formed some kind of attachment. Well, at least he had; Alec couldn't speak for the woman in front of him. Speaking of which, she hadn't answered his question.

He walks closer to her still, turning the gap into inches instead of feet. "Max….Trust me."

For a second it looks like she is going to snap at him. Instead, she looks at him and he can see the trail of dried tears. God, how long has she been here alone?

"I do…more than you know."

"Then talk to me. I promise to be quiet for more than 10 minutes."

Normally, that would have earned him a smile, or at  least a punch on the arm. He receives neither; instead, she turns back to the window. He can see her contemplating something and does indeed remain silent. 

"When we escaped from Manticore in 09, we thought we were better off on the outside. That no matter how scared we were of it, the outside world couldn't be as horrible as that prison. That everything would be sunshine and roses once we had control of our own destinies. I wanted….I wanted a home, you know. A place I felt safe, wanted... with unconditional love, no matter what I am. Not where terror is used as discipline and love isn't a word in the dictionary."

She stops a moment and Alec's heart breaks for her. He never knew; at the time he wanted to find the escapees himself and bring them down one by one for what they did to those left behind. As he grew older within the confines of hell, however, Alec understood their motivation better, but never like this. He's speechless. 

Sniffling, she continues, still staring out the window. "What they hell did we know, Alec, we were children. Perfectly engineered children with no idea of how unfair and harsh the real world is. Ten years later, and I'm wondering if we shouldn't have just stayed there and taken it. Become perfect little soldiers. Maybe we made a mistake; I don't think we took into consideration the effect our breakout would have. You and the other twins….god Alec, I can only imagine what they did to you. I've heard….things. I've destroyed more lives then I've helped."

She pauses for a moment. "Logan….he…..he would have been better off without me anywhere near him. Maybe I should leave, get as far away from Seattle as I can, do what Zack asked me to."

"Max, what happened?" He is almost afraid of her answer. He can't stand the thought of her leaving Seattle, leaving him. Almost unconsciously, he moves closer to her, his chest brushing against her back, both looking out into the darkness, searching for an answer.

"It's over. Really over."

Logan.

"Max, you'll get the cure. You're the most single minded person I've…" He is quickly cut off.

"Its not the virus, Alec. White almost had him. They found Joshua's house, I'm not sure how. White was 10 minutes from having him, from having me too."

How hadn't he known this? Why didn't he know that Logan, and Max by extension, were in danger? 

"I was there when he was found out. One hacking session that lasted a second too long. There was no time to call anyone. We packed him up…" She looks at her watch. "He should about be in Canada by now."

"Max, when this all blows over -- and it will -- he can come back. You can be together." It's killing him to say it. Killing him to be the bigger person and give her up before he even had her. And yes, he wanted her, more than anything. He's not sure when it happened, but at some point Max had crawled under his skin and made herself a home, without him even realizing it.

He wouldn't say he loves her, exactly, that would require entirely too much analysis of the love/hate relationship they shared. Besides, he doesn't have a great background for identifying emotions. There was Rachel, and he thinks – god, he _hopes_ -- he loved her. But what he has with Max is something entirely different.

Granted, he would have killed for either of them -- and still would for Max -- but something inside him tells him that their connection is stronger than what he had with Rachel. Maybe it's the common denominator they share, because no one can understand them like each other. Maybe it's the need he has to protect her, to keep her safe…not only for her sake, but TC's. And his. 

She shakes her head at him, and looks at him…really looks at him so that it seems like she is piercing his soul. "No, we can't. We never could. Don't you see, Alec -- you were right. We are dangerous to them."

He flinches slightly, remembering the words. He had said them with no small amount of selfishness. The only way he could have her would be to drive a wedge between Max and the ordinary, so he tried with one half-hearted sentence..

But now, he can't stand the idea of her leaving Logan because of something he said in a moment of weakness. Try as he might to ignore it, he does have a conscience. "Max, maybe I was wrong. Hey, I'm wrong a lot -- you should know."

"No. You're not wrong. You never have been. Alec, since you've crashed into my life, you've been a constant. Someone I can count on no matter what. I just….I wanted the idea of me and Logan to work. Ideas aren't reality, Alec; they are dreams, wants, hopes, desires. I thought Logan was home; I wanted him to be. He gave me the love I craved, but I had to abandon what I was for it. I had to turn my back on my nature. Dreams and hopes-those things don't exist in our world. We live in the here and now."

By now, she has closed the small gap between them. He can feel the heat radiating off her body. This is really not going where he had expected at all. He swallows hard, trying to keep the feelings that are threatening to expose themselves at bay. He had been looking over her head, trying not to look into her eyes, knowing that would be his undoing at her hands. Again. But when a small hand reaches out, wraps around his neck and touches his barcode, the battle is over. Alec is sure that every emotion he has toward this woman is expressed on his face. 

Finally, he looks at her. Oh god. This isn't good; he's sure this is going to end badly -- with his emotional well-being shredded into pieces at her hands. And yet he does nothing to stop it.

"Max…"

"Shhhhhh…." One finger rests on his lips. "I'm so sorry about how I have treated you. I hold a special place in my heart for transgenics, Alec -- especially you. But I haven't acted that way at all. You deserve better than what I give you."

She pauses and moves her finger, biting down lightly on her lower lip. He knows better than to say anything. Apologies from Max are few and far between. Especially an apology with her standing millimeters from him, her eyes never leaving his for an instant. 

"I KNOW you Alec. I know that underneath that playboy exterior lies someone with a heart bigger than his head. Someone who does care about the people around him, no matter how much he plays it off. You mean a lot to me, more than I cared to acknowledge, until now. It was too hard, Alec, too hard to admit I made a terrible mistake by turning my back on what I was.

When you came around, practically flaunting what you were, I was jealous. You were a constant reminder of what I had done; what I was doing. Ignoring who I am, and all the while using it to my advantage -- and Logan's, advantage. So instead, I took it out on you. You're a good person, Alec -- something I've chosen to ignore for far too long. The same way I ignored the fact that Logan wasn't home."

Oh. God. This cannot be happening. He can't talk, honestly cannot come up with one word to diffuse what is becoming an emotionally dangerous situation for them both. If anything happens here, there would be no going back, Alec can't go back. Not with her. Once they cross that line, he won't be able to let her go. 

"I belong here. With you. I always have."

Line; Alec. Alec; line.

"Max. You can't be sure of that. You can't. Logan isn't gone forever."

"I don't want Logan, Alec. I want you." She leans into him further, pressing her cheek against his while whispering. "You're home."

He almost takes a step back at her words. "I can't be someone you want because I happen to be here. Max, I can't be a replacement. I….I can't do that. Not with anyone, especially not with you."

"Trust me."

Her eyes tell him that she is speaking the truth. Those expressive eyes, telling him everything he needs to know. It's not love for her either, yet. But it could be. It could be something great, something destined by fate and pushed together by Manticore. He trusts her, more than anyone in his entire godforsaken life. 

Tilting his head, he brings his lips down onto hers lightly, almost cautiously. Giving her the chance to stop this before it gets to far. Before someone gets hurt. 

Instead she slides her hand away from his barcode and up into his hair, pressing him to her harder. He moans lightly, wanting nothing more than to take her right here. Claim her as his own, mark her as his. But he doesn't; he restrains himself. Content to stay right where he is, one hand tangled in her long hair, the other on her hip, running his fingers against the bare skin above her jeans. His lips tasting every square inch of her neck and jaw. He wants to enjoy this…this whatever they have created. 

After several minutes and quite a few low groans from her, he pulls away. He's not sure that it's best for her to fall into bed with him only hours after sending away the only other man she's loved. 

"Alec, stay with me tonight."

"And tomorrow?"

"And tomorrow." She nods and holds his hand. 

"I'll be here for you Max -- yesterday, today and tomorrow." He whispers and again presses his lips to hers. 

_Fin_


End file.
